By Marilyn Young, Editor
Anita Hiles has been working for Realty Executives on the West Coast for years, even since she came to Jacksonville in 2011.
Now she’s a big part of the company’s East Coast team.
Late last month, Hiles was named managing broker for the company’s new Oceanside office at Beach and Kernan boulevards.
The high-producing Realtor and team leader has wanted to open her own office for a while. Then the opportunity with Realty Executives came up.
“I thought what better way than to stay connected to the West Coast office,” Hiles said.
The location for the new office is ideal for Hiles, who said 75 percent of her team’s work stretches from Kernan Boulevard east to the beaches.
Plus there is plenty of new business popping up all around there.
“There are four new subdivisions alone that we literally can walk to,” she said.
As excited as Hiles is about the opportunity, it was bittersweet because it means leaving Exit Real Estate Gallery and broker-owner Sonny Downey.
“It was difficult to part with them,” she said.
Hiles counts Downey among three primary mentors who have had a major impact on her real estate career that began in 2005.
The other two are Barbara Kerr, broker-owner of the Realty Executives Fullerton office in California where Hiles works, and Sandi Wagner with Watson Realty Corp., the first Jacksonville company she joined.
Watson Realty is where Hiles built her first team, which she continued to grow at Exit Real Estate.
Most of her team made the transition with her to Realty Executives, though two stayed behind.
Hiles said she looks for energetic people who understand selling real estate isn’t easy, who know “they are going to have to get out there and hit the pavement every day.”
As a team leader, she enjoyed mentoring and training agents. That will continue in her new office not only from her, but from other team members.
Hiles has some learning to do herself. Running an office is different than leading a team.
For the next two years, Realty Executives District Manager Bruce Vinnick will be working with Hiles.
“He’s grooming me to take full control of the office,” she said.
Hiles said she will initially handle some sales, but that will eventually be phased out so she can become more involved in the real estate community and serve on industry-related committees.
She’s been humbled by the congratulatory messages from fellow Realtors throughout the area. Even better, Hiles said, she’s been getting a lot of calls from other brokers, wishing the office success.
“They’re willing to be there for us,” she said. “That says a lot for our community.”
Hiles will continue to travel to California occasionally for business, which also gives her time to visit her family. She jokes with them that she only visits when she can write-off the trip.
California is not only where Hiles started her real estate career, it’s where she served as a police officer for 25 years.
Her interest in law enforcement began when she was 13 and in the Police Explorer program. She and her sister attended the police academy together.
Hiles served in several capacities on the department, including as a detective, in the gang unit and as a recruiter.
Most of her career was as a patrol officer, which she returned to for her final year.
“I wanted to go back where it all started,” she said.